Living in Honesdale, PA — Where American Railroading Started

Honesdale is the county seat of Wayne County, a borough of 4,458 residents (2020 Census) in the northern Poconos. Wayne County was founded on March 21, 1798 and named for General Anthony Wayne.

The town has a claim most places would build a whole tourism industry around. In 1829, the Stourbridge Lion was shipped here from England for the canal company hauling anthracite out of the region, and on August 8, 1829 it made its first official run at Honesdale — the first steam locomotive to run on commercial track in the United States. A full-scale replica sits in the Wayne County Historical Society’s Museum and Research Center at 810 Main Street.

Food & Drink

For a town this size, Main Street eats unusually well.

Native at 560 Main is a New American, casual fine-dining room. Dyberry Forks serves farm-to-table seasonal cooking in a building that housed an agricultural co-op back in the 1830s. Here & Now Brewing at 645 Main handles craft beer, cocktails and food. Scarfalloto’s Towne House at 920 Main has been a diner and restaurant for Wayne County for more than forty years, and China Castle at 1143 Main and JAGs on Main round out the street.

Things to Do

The Wayne County Historical Society Museum on Main Street is the keeper of the railroad story and worth the stop. Beyond it, Honesdale is the service and dining town for a large recreational region — Lake Wallenpaupack, the third-largest lake in Pennsylvania, is a short drive, and the northern Poconos surround the borough in every direction.

Outdoors & Parks

This is the practical appeal of Honesdale: you are inside the Pocono recreation belt without paying resort-town prices. Lakes, state forest, rail-trail and river access are all close. The D&H Rail-Trail corridor connects this county toward Lackawanna, following the same route the coal once took.

Schools

Honesdale is served by the Wayne Highlands School District, headquartered in the borough.

School Performance

State assessment results for the high school serving Honesdale, from the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Future Ready PA Index, 2024–25 school year:

• Honesdale High School — Keystone Literature 81.9% proficient or advanced (statewide 49.9%) · Keystone Algebra I 69.9% (statewide 41.7%) · four-year graduation rate 90.5% (statewide 88.0%)

Source: Pennsylvania Department of Education, Future Ready PA Index, 2024–25. We publish these same three measures, from this same source, on every community page in this guide.

Everyday Essentials

⭐ Wayne Memorial Hospital is the real anchor here. It began in 1920 in a small building on Court Street and has grown into a nonprofit, community-controlled health system with more than 1,000 employees, offices across four counties, and care in more than 30 medical specialties. For a town of 4,458 people to have a full hospital with an emergency department is genuinely unusual — and it is why Honesdale is the closest ER for a wide stretch of the region, including Carbondale.

Main Street carries the borough’s retail and services, with county offices in town.

The Homes

Honesdale’s housing is a Victorian-era county seat’s: substantial older homes on the hillside streets above Main, more modest village housing on the grid, and farmhouses and acreage out in the surrounding townships. Second-home and lake buyers compete for some of the same inventory given Wallenpaupack’s proximity, which supports values here more than the population alone would suggest.

The Lackawaxen River runs through the borough, so flood zone matters on low-lying parcels. Check it before you write.